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The new shape of SRM

After years of development, millions in funding and countless PowerPoint slideshows, traditional storage resource management (SRM) software vendors seem to be resigning themselves to the fact that SRM isn't--and probably never will be--the moneymaker they'd hoped for. Instead, baseline SRM functionality is being bundled with servers and storage, or it's being used to jumpstart more lucrative service engagements. Case in point: Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced last month that it plans to stop selling its OpenView Storage Area Manager next year and that, going forward, its entire line of ProLiant and HP-UX servers will be bundled with Storage Essentials 1.0, an SRM package HP is OEMing from AppIQ. Storage Essentials integrates with HP's server management tool, Systems Insight Manager. Or take StorageTek, which is redoubling its efforts around its $900 million Global Services organization. As part of that plan, StorageTek announced last month a new Storage Appraisal service designed to help customers gain a better understanding of ...

SATA drives are great low-cost alternatives to pricey Fibre Channel and SCSI drives, but they lack the reliability and performance that mission-critical applications demand. But new technologies are bringing SATA up to enterprise-class standards.